


Foam Party

by SinisterScribe



Series: Strange Cases [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emmet Swan - Freeform, Emmet is ripped, F/F, F/M, Genderbending, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Like, MORE GENDER BENDING, Oneshot, Part of a new series, Regina is pretty damn oblivious, Rule 63, Snow is hella mad, Stockings, awkward sexual tension is awkward, bit crackish if Im totes honest, fire extinguishers are not toys guys, guy!Emma, if only they were both aware that was what it was, seriously, these two are terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:17:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinisterScribe/pseuds/SinisterScribe
Summary: A snippet from the Strange Case AU.Emmet is continuing his magic lessons with Regina and he's beginning to realise that all sorts of things can fuel his power. Things like a hot sorceress and excessive hormones.This is uncomfortable knowledge for all concerned.





	Foam Party

**Author's Note:**

> SO!
> 
> I'm not writing right now so I've been digging through my harddrive looking for stuff to give y'all that might be half decent. I stumbled across this file which has freaking LOADS of SQ scenes in it from my SQ Genderbent universe. 
> 
> I still need to add a closing chapter to Strange Case because I'm definitely not going to write the three part freaking novel series that it was originally going to be. Instead y'all can have a series of connected oneshots. How nice. 
> 
> This takes place a few weeks after the end(ish) of Strange Case and Regina and Emmet are better at acting civil towards one another. Hormones are raging. People are realising that they might not hate one another. 
> 
> Shenanigans ensue.

**_Granny’s…_ **

 

“What happened to you?” Ruby slid to a halt behind the bar and frowned at Emmet as he sat down, cradling a hand close to his chest.

“Little run in with a wild beast.” Emmet gave a lopsided smile.

“Really? I didn’t know she ran to biting.” Ruby’s brows raised, it looked a little nasty.

Emmet’s fingers were held carefully still by his other hand and they looked battered and bruised. Already red and purpling with the trauma of a crushing wound. His skin hadn’t been broken though, she couldn’t smell blood.

“Only if asked nicely.” Regina appeared from behind Emmet and dumped her purse on the bar. Regina grinned, showing off all her teeth. “I’ll have my usual, please.”

“Uh, I, erm, okay.” Ruby was a little caught off guard by how _little_ Regina had reacted to that insult. She just seemed to take it all in her stride and not rise to the bait.

Weird.

“Do you want the first aid kit?” Ruby nodded to Emmet’s hand.

“No, I think we can manage.” Regina slipped up onto the stool beside Emmet’s. She was facing the door so she would see Henry as soon as he arrived.

“Oh, we will, will we?” Emmet glared at her. “You should have warnings on those things you know.”

“There are warnings. It’s not my fault you can’t read Khuzdul.” Regina held out her hand to him.

“What?” Emmet frowned at her and she rolled her eyes.

“Give me your hand, idiot.” She reached out and took him by the wrist, careful not to touch or jostle his fingers. Two of them were broken. She decided not to tell him that. His whining would only increase. “It’s easily fixable.”

“What the hell is Koorz-dull and why don’t you keep those things locked away?” Emmet kept a weather eye on her as she folded one leg over the other and rested his hand on her knee. He was struck again by how warm she was.

“They become sad if confined.” Regina examined his hand carefully, turning it this way and that. “And it is an ancient dwarvish dialect. Tolkien wrote about it in this world.”

“They become sad?!” Emmet frowned at her. “They’re books!”

“You know very well that a book can have a life of its own.” Regina lifted her head with a frown. “Words are the most powerful invention of man and to write them down, to collect them, to give them a body, it is to give them life. Why do you think reading something by a wonderful author can make you feel as if you have been transported to that world? Why do you care about the characters that the author writes of? Why is it such a repugnant idea to _burn_ books?”

Emmet clipped his teeth together and did her the grace of considering her words.

“Books have life, Emmet. Why do you think I feared Henry’s book so much?”

“Because it told the truth about you.”

“It’s easy to see why you might have that impression.” Regina murmured, studying his fingers still.

 She was going to have to reset them. The bones were misaligned and he wouldn’t thank her for letting them heal only so they’d have to be broken again to regain the use of them. Fractures in the floating joints were always a bitch.

“Oh, so you’re NOT a mass murdering psychopath and everyone else has just been wrong up until now?”

Regina lifted her head and looked him in the eye. She watched him replay what he had just said to himself, open his mouth, to apologise probably. She gripped his fingers in her hand and gave a sudden yank.

_Cri-crack!_

“For the love of god, Regina!” Emmet bellowed, his entire body arched in pain whilst she firmly held him in place by his injured hand. “What the fuck?!”

“Language, Mister Swan.” Regina easily held him hostage through the means of holding his agonised fingers in the grip of one hand. “And it needed done. It was either now or breaking them again later and that would be worse.”

Emmet glared at her, his chest heaving and breathing heavily through his nose. He shook his hair back, his jaw clenched in a line of granite and she realised quite suddenly that he was at his most attractive when he was angry.

“What are you smiling at?” He growled at her and she worked down the feminine shiver of appreciation at the sound.

“In joke.” She shrugged a shoulder and laid her other hand around Emmet’s fingers. “Listen.”

He seethed out a breath when purple light began to shimmer between her fingers. A cool soothing sensation bathed his battered joints and cracked bones. The pain began to melt away as the swelling subsided. The skin paled, normalising in colour.

 He tried to pay attention to what she was doing but he felt lightheaded with the sudden lack of pain and the overdose of endorphins that was coursing through him. They now had no pain to counteract so he was reeling quietly to himself as he tried to study the healing spell that she wove around his hand.

“Now, what am I doing?”

“I…uh…” Emmet wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“ _Listen_.” She repeated firmly. “And tell me. What am I doing?”

“Uh…my heart’s pounding, you’ve increased the circulation to move the fluid away from the wounds. The swelling’s going down which is lessening the pain. You put a shunt in the nerve endings somewhere in my arm, I can’t feel my elbow. You physically realigned the bones so you don’t need to worry about that…and there’s something else, but I don’t know what it is.”

Regina lifted one hand from on top of his and leaned a little closer to him, her hand coming down to rest on his sternum. She rotated her hand on its heel slowly until her fingertips rested over the thump of his heart in his chest. She tapped her fingers and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh.” Emmet frowned. “You insulated my heart.”

“Very good.” Regina leaned back from him, her hand drawing away and resting on top of his again. “Why would I do that?”

“Tachycardia.” Emmet frowned, he had heard that on a medical show he thought. _House_ or something. “You had to give me a pacemaker or the increase in pulse would give me a heart attack.”

“Good.” She nodded once and lifted both hands, raising them so they were level with her shoulders, leaving Emmet’s hand resting on her knee. “Good afternoon, Missus Lucas.”

Emmet turned to see Granny and shot out of his stool, body checking Regina out of hers and yanking her behind him in one move.

“Granny, what the hell?!” Emmet stared wide eyed at the old woman at the other end of the shotgun that was pointed at him.

“She…wasn’t trying to rip your heart out?” Granny frowned and slowly lowered the shotgun a little.

“No!” Emmet glared at her. “You really think she’d do that right here in front of everybody when Henry’s two minutes from walking in the door?!”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Granny lowered the shotgun completely and looked a little sheepish.      

“And, just so we’re clear,” Regina leaned around Emmet to speak to Granny, “I’m much quicker than that. I’d have had it out and your shotgun down your throat before either of you could react.”

“Not. _Helping_.” Emmet half turned and gritted at her.

“I am dangerous, Emmet. You’ve never truly seen it, but Missus Lucas has. She does well to remember.”

“You played me.” Granny looked pissed. “You did it on purpose to see how we’d react. A test.”

“I have to know what I can and cannot do.” Regina shrugged a shoulder and skirted Emmet, hopping up onto her stool again. She canted an elbow on the bar and smirked. “Now…my coffee?”

Granny scowled at her, opening her mouth to give the queen a stern talking to but was stalled by the door jangling and Henry walking in. 

Everyone was staring at his mom, Emmet looked frazzled and Granny was hiding something behind the bar.

“What’d I miss?” Henry looked about the frozen diner.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Regina turned and gave him a dazzling smile.

“Hey, mom.” Henry grinned, forgetting his questions for the moment and bounding over to her. He beamed a smile at her, because he had to really show that he was happy to see her for her to believe it, and it dimmed after a moment. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Regina frowned a little and tilted her head. “Nothing at all. I was just waiting for you. Do you want a milkshake?”

“Chocolate and raspberry?” Henry raised his eyebrows hopefully and she smirked.

“Is there another flavour?” Regina grinned at him and then turned back to Granny, her tone becoming a little more brittle. “Cancel the coffee, we’ll have two Henry Specials.”

“Uh, sure.” Granny was frowning at her and then took herself off to make the order.

“Why don’t you go and sit over in the booth there and I’ll be over in a second? I just need to give Emmet his next task.”

“You’re doing lessons in the diner now?” Henry frowned up at Emmet.

“Apparently.” Emmet retook his stool by the bar and glared at Regina. The expression smoothed from his face when he noticed something and he became thoughtful.

“There was an incident in the library.” Regina smirked, folding one leg over the other and smirking at Emmet. It wasn’t entirely a mean one though.

“Let’s not talk about it.” Emmet needlessly smoothed his shirt and looked over the length of the bar.

“I got math homework. Can you help me, mom?” Henry looked back to Regina, deciding he could wheedle that story out of Emmet later.

“What’s this? _Volunteering_ for homework? Who are you and what have you done with my son?” Regina smiled down at him, though she was genuinely curious.

“Emmet says you’re, like, super clever. So maybe you can explain it to me in a way I get. I’ve only got until dinner because then you go away for the night.”

Regina blinked and straightened a little in her stool. She summoned a smile from somewhere.

“Well, get a booth for us and I’ll be right over.” Regina nodded and Henry beamed a smile at her again.

“Okay!” Henry bounced away across the diner.

 Regina watched as he hurled his backpack down, peeled off his jacket and sidled into the booth. He dug out his math books and spread them out over the table, poring over them and frowning already.

“We failed the test, didn’t we?”

“Hmm?” Regina turned back to look at Emmet. “Pardon?”

“The test, with you reaching for my heart, we failed it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking…” Regina had already started to shrug but Emmet cut her firmly off.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.” He growled and leaned closer to her. She arched a brow at him but did not lean away. “You dragged me in here to do magic in public and see how people would react. You deliberately hurt me to see how far you could push it and –when that didn’t work- you thought you’d do the thing you’re most feared for to get a _rise_ out of people. What’s the matter? Don’t you _want_ people to start trusting you?”

“They will never trust me.” Regina looked at him like he was an idiot. “Setting your fingers was necessary. You had to learn that pain is part of healing for I will not help you do it again should you need it.”

She looked him up and down and then away from him.

“And I wasn’t trying to get a rise out of anyone. In my experience, they rise up all by themselves.”

Emmet frowned and mulled her over. He glanced over at Henry and his frown deepened.

Henry had seen something. He’d seen something that Emmet hadn’t and he worried it over and over in his head until something occurred to him.

“You’re hurt.”

Regina lifted her head from studying something on the menu and she frowned.

“What? I’m perfectly well. You’re the one with the mangled fingers.”

“They’re fine now.” Emmet wriggled his fingers and flexed his hand on his wrist to show them off. “But…that stunt, you’re upset that Granny pulled a gun on you. You thought you’d gotten past that.”   

Regina heaved a long suffering sigh and rolled her eyes.

“I told you, people never have and they never _will_ like me. Do you honestly think I’ve lived for as long as I have without coming to that realisation and accepting it? What do I care of the old bag’s opinion anyway? She cooks her lasagne from frozen.”

With that, she spun away and dropped down off the stool, clopping over to Henry’s booth and sitting down beside him. She smiled for him but –now that he had noticed it- Emmet couldn’t unsee the sadness behind her eyes.

She had genuinely thought, genuinely hoped, that all the things she had done in the past weeks and months had gained her a little ground. That maybe, just maybe, she had made a little progress. That people might see her as something other than the character she had played for so long. That they might see her as more than the Evil Queen. A caricature from a children’s book.  

Emmet felt his jaw clench and felt his magic pounding in his veins. She was _trying_. She was trying so hard, even though she didn’t like him, even if it was mostly for Henry, she was trying. Emmet’s hand fisted on the bar so tightly that the newly healed joints crackled and popped.

She was trying and they had thrown it back in her face.

She was _still_ trying and they had hurt her for it.

“Two Henry Specials.” Granny, clapped the tall glasses onto the bar. “You want anything, son?”

“Threaten her again and I’ll arrest you for possession of an illegal firearm.”

The diner stopped and it was only then that Emmet realised his voice had thundered throughout the entire room.

Granny blinked at him, her brows raising and Regina was already out of her booth and across to the bar before the echo had died away.

“Emmet,” she reached out and took him by the chin, yanking his head around to face her, “Emmet, look at me.”

Emmet glowered at Granny out of the corner of his eye and then turned his attention on Regina.

She was frowning at him, studying the depths of his eyes, and then her brows rose in surprise. She shook it off quickly and turned to Granny.

“You’ll have to excuse him. His magic is reacting to the pain of his fingers. It can often mis-translate into other emotions.” Regina offered something of a smile and scooped up the drinks, taking them back over to Henry and drawing him back into his math homework.

Emmet turned to look back at Granny and tilted his head.

“You believe that?”

Granny slowly shook her head.

“Me either.” Emmet agreed, he spun fully back to the bar and leaned over it, his weight resting on his elbows. He spoke congenially but there was undercurrent of steel to it. “She’s trying. She’s trying hard. You could at least _attempt_ to meet her halfway.”

“She’s going to have to do a lot better than _try_ to earn…”

“You have no idea how hard it is for her. To act normal. To try and see the world like the rest of us do. You remember being a wolf, you remember running faster than any other animal, than being stronger than anyone, more dangerous, having all that power just _boiling_ under your skin. You must remember looking at everyone else and thinking how SLOW they were. About how mediocre, how boring, how small their half lives must be. Now add on that she’s a freaking genius and everyone else is suddenly a cardboard goldfish.”

“Cardboard goldfish?” Granny arched a brow at him.

“ _Don’t_ brush it off because I can tell that you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“She’s killed a lot of people, boy.”

“Haven’t we all?” Emmet glared at her and wouldn’t back down.

Granny was the first to look away.

“And get a licence for that thing. I’ve had enough of feudal justice.” Emmet tapped the bar to indicate the shotgun beneath it.

“Anything else, Sheriff?” Granny asked in a brittle tone.

“A milkshake would be nice.” Emmet summoned a smile from somewhere.

He didn’t like falling out with Granny, he recognised that she was a dangerous old broad, but it had to be done. He was sick of people just _getting away_ with treating each other like shit. Regina especially seemed to just take it as wrote that it was her lot in life to be vilified at every turn no matter what she did and that…that really fucking pissed him off.

“You’re really picking her side?”

“I’m picking the side of people that realise pulling a _gun_ on someone when there is a diner full of people and where my SON could walk in any minute is a fucking stupid idea.” Emmet growled. “You messed up. You know it. Move on.”

Granny’s jaw rocked to the side and she nodded once. Turning away, she headed off to get him a milkshake and she _probably_ wasn’t going to put rat poison in it.

“Finished making friends and influencing people?”

Emmet turned when he heard Regina’s heels clip across the floor towards him.

“Just doing my job.” Emmet shrugged a shoulder. “You got a new lesson for me?”

Regina looked at him for a long moment and then smirked.

“Listen.” She held up one hand and snapped her fingers.

A small flame, the size of a candle flame, balanced on her thumbnail. She let him see it for a moment and then flicked her fingers across the tip of her thumb to snuff it.

“Again.”

Snap. Flame. Snuff.

Emmet watched and listened carefully. He nodded slowly.

“The idea is to summon an element and control it. Remember to protect yourself from the burn. I won’t heal you again.”

“Yes, boss.” Emmet drawled at her and she nodded once, turning to head back to the table with Henry.

She halted only when his hand circled her wrist. Turning back to him, she looked down at his hand and then back to his face.

He didn’t immediately let her go.

“I protected you.”

Regina snorted and rolled her eyes. She yanked her wrist from his hold.

“Congratulations on doing the ‘right thing’ yet again. Expect my thank you card in the mail.”

“I did it because you shouldn’t have your life threatened for doing absolutely nothing wrong.”

“It’s no more than I deserve. I have done that and more in the past myself. Repeatedly.”

“Doesn’t mean you deserve it now.”

Regina frowned at him, obviously nonplussed.

“I threatened your life this very morning.”

Which was true, she had told him that if he scuffed his toe against the floor one more time because he was bored she was going to sever his entire foot and use the soggy end to beat him to death.

“Nah, you didn’t mean that.” Emmet grinned and waved it away.

She frowned at him.

“How do you know?”

“Because, if you meant it, I’d be dead.” He shrugged. “You were just stropping your claws.”

“I was…?” Regina shook her head. “What?”

“You know, that thing that cats do. They savage the carpet or curtains or something. They’re not hurting anybody but it does them good to use their claws for something.” He shrugged. “It’s called stropping.”

Regina opened her mouth and then clapped it closed when she realised she had no response for that. She frowned at him a moment and then shook her head.

“Well…strop away.” She waved at him. “Summon a flame and we’ll be done for the day.”

Emmet watched her turn away and smirked to himself. He wasn’t sure if he’d gotten through to her but –so long as she kept trying- he’d keep trying.

Emmet focussed a moment and snapped his fingers.

Nothing.

He frowned and reviewed what he had just done and compared it to what he’d heard Regina do. He measured the melodies of magic against one another and nodded. Ah, that bit. He focussed, tweaking the problem area, and snapped his fingers again.

A tiny puff of smoke.

He smirked, progress.

The spell was right, it just needed more power. Emmet was still learning control and Regina had drummed it into him that he was powerful and needed to watch what the hell he was doing otherwise he might as well go behind the bar, get that shotgun and start waving it around to see what happened. He added a little more power, just a smidge, and tried again. 

Emmet glanced up and stilled when he saw Regina.

Only for a second, he snapped his fingers again and the scent of struck matches filtered through the air.

Hers hadn’t smelled of anything. It had burned clean.

He mulled the spell over, wondering where the sulphurous smell had come from and continued to watch Regina and Henry.

Though his attention was increasingly focussed on Regina.

She stood by the table, not having retaken her seat yet, and she bent forward to lean over and point to something in one of Henry’s text books.

Emmet snapped his fingers again.

She really did suit that skirt. Any of her pencil skirts really. Sensible pant suits were all well and good, but he liked the skirts and the heels and her legs.

Speaking of, _where_ had she gotten those pantyhose?

They were dark and transparent as pantyhose had a wont to be, but they also had seams running pencil straight right up the back of her legs. The seam wasn’t a smooth line though. It was a pattern of some kind. Red too.

Emmet snapped his fingers again and frowned.

What was it?

It started off tiny, just the barest beading of the line at her heel making it apparent that it was a pattern, but it gradually increased in size as it continued over the back of her leg, the curve of her calf, the hollow of her knee until it was _almost_ recognisable at the hem of her skirt.

Regina leaned forward a little further, bending at the waist, her spine dipping a little and one hand resting on the table top whilst the other pointed out something else for Henry.

Emmet snapped his fingers again.

One of her feet left the floor, her leg bending so that the sharp toe of her stiletto ran over the seam of the opposite leg. Her skirt rode up just a tiny bit and the pattern was then large enough for Emmet to see.

Lips.

Red lips printed on the back of her thigh in the fabric of the stocking and it _was_ a stocking, because he knew she preferred them. The lace patterned with the stamped imprints of yet more lips as if someone had peppered that intimate area with kisses.

Emmet snapped his fingers.

His gaze travelled up over the length of her body, admiring the fit of her skirt, the dip in her spine as she leaned over the table and he stilled entirely when she turned her head to look back at him.

Emmet would forever blame his new male physiology for what happened next but the sight of her bent over, those damn stockings and her skirt riding up just that tantalising inch and the way she turned to look at him all dark eyes, red lips and tumbling hair…was it any wonder?  

Emmet set fire to himself.

“Shit!”

Emmet leapt up off the stool, the fire sparking from all five fingers and the palm of his hand and promptly catching on the sleeve of his shirt. It raced up his arm and he really didn’t want it to still be burning when it got to his hair.

Regina saved him.

She had crossed the distance between them, perfectly calmly, before he could even stop, drop and roll, fisted both hands in his shirt collar and –with a single jerk of her hands- shredded it entirely from his body.

Regina held both halves of the flaming shirt, about to flick it once and snuff it with a well placed spell when Ruby arrived to save the day.

Regina _shrieked_ when she was suddenly doused with freezing cold white foam.

The shirt was soaked through in an instant, the flames smoking to nothing. The white splatter covered her entire left side, liberally splashed all over her and Ruby didn’t let up until the entire red fire extinguisher was empty.

Thank goodness it had just been a small one.

Regina stood frozen in the middle of the diner, half of a dripping shirt in each hand, her jaw clenched and her eyes closed. Foam covering one side of her body entirely, even up over her neck, face and into her hair.

She dripped onto the floor and let loose a low growl.

Lifting one half of the shirt, she shifted her grip so the only clean part of it that had been sheltered in her hand, could clear the foam away from her eye. She blinked a couple of times, lifted her head to give Ruby _such_ a tongue lashing, and froze when she saw Emmet.

If Regina was half covered, Emmet was practically a snowman.

She knew he was naked to the waist because she was holding his shirt, but she honestly wouldn’t have been able to tell otherwise. He was _completely_ covered in foam. From the top of his formerly golden head to soaking halfway down his thighs. In fact, he must have turned into it at one point to be so completely covered.

Regina felt her mouth doing something strange.

Her lips twitched, she blinked again, and the corners lifted. She struggled against it for a moment and then she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

She burst out laughing.

“Oh great,” Emmet muttered from within his foam suit, she could only see the parting of the foam and his mouth barely visible beneath it, “she’s off again.”

Regina laughed harder. She couldn’t help it. He looked so…so…funny! All those distracting rippling muscles covered in foam, his sculpted face about as handsome as a snowman right then, and his hair plastered down to his head.

He carefully cleared the foam from his eyes and looked at her.

“Stop it, Regina.”

“Are you mad?” Regina just about managed to ask in a normal voice and then dissolved into giggles again. “I can’t tell.”

Emmet folded his slippery arms over his chest and his face did _something_ behind the foam but she didn’t know what.

“Wait,” Regina dropped the shirt halves with a splatter and trotted over to him, slithering on the floor, “wait, wait, wait.”

Reaching up and catching her tongue between her teeth, Regina concentrated fiercely and traced her finger over the foam on Emmet’s brow twice.

“Angry eyes.” She tilted her head and admired her handiwork.

Eyebrows, she had drawn eyebrows onto him. Giving him a fierce scowl whether he wanted it or not.

Regina grinned up at him, her mood vastly improved at the detriment of his and she shook her hair back. Magic rolled over her and the foam splattered away, splashing onto the floor and yet more of it over Emmet.

Regina smoothed her hands over her bone dry skirt, smirking at Emmet when he actually did scowl down at her. He smeared the foam away from more of his face and glared down at her.

“Do that again.” He demanded. “I didn’t hear it all.”

“No.” Regina chuckled at him. “I told you, I wasn’t going to help you again today.”

“But I’m soaked through!” Emmet threw his arms wide and succeeded in splattering Doc with a face full of foam.

“Not my problem.” Regina shrugged a shoulder and folded her arms over her chest.

“It’s about to be.”

She frowned at him.

“You’re going to have to do it again if you’re covered in more of this crap.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Regina narrowed her eyes and then squeaked in alarm when he lunged for her. “Emmet!”

“C’mere!” Emmet pounced for Regina again and cursed when she somehow ducked out of his grasp before his big arms could close around her.

He ignored how eager he was to get a hold of her and chased her across the diner when she took to her heels.

“Stop that, you foam covered reprobate!” Regina danced out of his reach and up onto the bench of Henry’s booth.

 When Emmet lunged for her again, she hopped up onto the table and had to duck around the hanging light fitting so as to not concuss herself. She shrieked when he grabbed for her and his wet fingers grazed her skirt.

“Stop that!” Regina hopped from the table to the back of the bench between Henry’s booth and the next and had to grab onto the lampshade to keep from falling when she clattered onto the table on the other side. “This is becoming undignified!”

“Not yet it hasn’t.” Emmet promised her and surged up onto the bench of that booth.

Emmet was aware of Ruby yelling at them about breaking something but he had more pressing things to attend to. Namely, seeing Regina with a transparent shirt again that clung to every inch of her.

Regina cursed and made a break for it, she scrambled another table over in the row of booths and then hopped down onto a chair and up onto one of the free standing tables in the middle of the diner. She was rather pleased to note that she had yet to knock a single thing out of place.

“They’re not going to let us come back after this.” She told Emmet, trying not to laugh.

“If you’d just do the spell again, it stops now.” Emmet swept more foam from his arms and chest, splattering it all over the floor.

“Hmm. Nope.” Regina spoke with a pop and made a small sound of alarm when he gave chase again.

It was more table hopping, quite impressive in a pencil skirt and four inch heels she thought, before she found herself on top of the bar, arms swinging out for balance when she nearly slithered clean off it when she landed on a newspaper.

“You’re really not taking this very well.” Regina hoisted her leg out of his reach and nudged him quite hard in the shoulder with her toe to knock him off balance. “Learn to lose.”

“You are hardly one to talk.” Emmet scrubbed his hands through his hair and then flicked the foam at her.

Regina dodged again, she had gone to _battle_ in five inch heels and a corset, dodging one civilian covered in foam wasn’t much of a challenge.

The real challenge came from being in two minds as to whether or not she actually wanted to escape from him.

Emmet’s wet hands clapped down onto the bar, one foot planted on a stool and he lunged up after her.

Freezing when a familiar voice rang throughout the diner.

“Emmet Placidus Swan, what the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Everyone slowly turned to look at Snow standing in the doorway, her hand still on the door handle and her mouth open in an angry gape. She looked pretty pissed. Taking in the destruction Emmet had waged on the diner in his rampaging chase after Regina, the foam splattered all over the floor, chairs, tables and other patrons and how Regina was crouched on top of the damn coffee machine, it seemed valid that she be a little irate. Her jaw clenched into a tight line and her eyes narrowed.

“His middle name is Placidus?” Regina frowned at Snow and shrieked when Emmet snatched her around the waist and hauled her down off the coffee machine and into his arms.

“Got you!”

Regina howled in outrage when Emmet wound his arms around her, rubbing his chest against hers, shaking his hair so more foam splattered over her and generally getting up close and personal and smearing the stuff all over her. He wiped his hands and arms dry on her suit, ignoring her yells of protest, and chanced his luck fiercely by nuzzling his face against her cheek and into her hair to transfer yet more foam onto her.

“Enough!”

A shockwave of magic knocked Emmet back a step and Regina stood scowling at him.

Emmet had time to wonder if he’d gone too far when Regina’s lips twitched and she shook her hair back with a wet slap as foam slopped from it. She gave him a haughty stare.

“I’m still not doing the spell again.”

“But you’re as wet as I am!”

“That’s getting a little personal.” Regina smirked and flirted automatically and then remembered her audience. “As is manhandling me. Do NOT do that again.”

Emmet scowled at her.

“Someone explain to me why my firstborn is defacing public property with…with…what is this?” Snow cautiously wiped a little of the foam left on Emmet’s chest off of him.

“Fire extinguisher foam.” Ruby growled, righting a chair that Emmet had knocked over in his gallivanting. “Your son decided it would be a good idea to set fire to himself.”

“Why would you do that?!” Snow rounded on Emmet and he frowned at her.

“It wasn’t on purpose!”

“That is true.”

Emmet smiled when Regina backed him up. It vanished at her next words.

“Emmet very rarely does anything impressive on purpose.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and Regina just _smirked_ at him with that infuriating curl of her lips. He had the sudden urge to grab her again though he wasn’t entirely sure what for.

He doubted it was to smear more foam on her.

“Okay, that explains why it’s all over you but…why is it now all over Regina too?”

“Selective deafness.” Regina nodded as if that was a perfectly clear explanation and Snow just frowned at her.

“She got covered too because she was holding a flaming shirt at the time and then she cleaned herself off but wouldn’t show me the spell to do it myself.” Emmet jabbed a finger at Regina.

“And you didn’t think to…ask for a towel?” Snow raised her eyebrows.

Emmet opened his mouth and then stalled.

“Uh, well, that is to say…she had that look on her face!” He thrust a finger at Regina so suddenly that she actually leaned back out of range.

“What look?”

“THAT look!” Emmet waved at Regina’s smug smirk.

Which she promptly wiped from her face as soon as Snow turned to look at her. She raised her eyebrows in an almost convincing expression of innocence and shrugged her shoulders, shaking her head.

“If he is referring to my classical and somewhat exotic beauty then –yes- I always have that look about me, other than that, I’m as clueless as you are. In this regard.” Regina hurriedly tacked on before she lowered her IQ by association.

“You can’t just go around _grabbing_ people!” Snow threw up her hands, back to yelling at Emmet. “Not even Regina.”

“Thanks.” Regina frowned and warily but gratefully accepted a towel from Granny when it was offered to her.

“And why are you doing fire spells in the diner?!” Snow planted her hands on her hips.

“I’m learning control.” Emmet ignored the long and drawn out snort from Ruby at that and meekly accepted his own towel. Glaring at Regina when she sidled around him to retreat back towards Henry and his math homework.

The kid had barely even blinked at the hijinks and shenanigans surrounding him. He was working on his Pythagoras and he needed to concentrate.

Emmet watched Regina go and then snapped his attention back to his mother when he remembered that was what had gotten him into this in the first place and the diner was probably out of fire extinguishers.

“I work better when there are people around me that aren’t…indestructible.” Emmet shrugged his huge shoulders, scrubbing the remains of the foam from his chest and stomach. “Regina thinks it’s a good idea for me to have real consequences.”

“Does she now?” Snow’s eyebrows were trying to relocate to her hairline. She looked askance at Regina.

Regina’s eyes darted from the interesting territory of Emmet’s chest to meet Snow’s glare when she felt it. She slowed in the act of towelling her hair from sopping to damp and shrugged her shoulders.

“It was just a _little_ fire spell.” Emmet held up his thumb and forefinger to indicate the size of flame that he had _meant_ to conjure.

“How’s that working out for you, Guy Fawkes?” Snow drawled.

“Pretty well, all considered. My hair’s not even singed.” Emmet tugged at the tail of his hair to double check and dropped it when Snow growled at him.

“This is serious. Henry was right there.”

“Mom was between him and me, grandma.” Henry spoke up without looking up from his math homework. “I was fine.”

“See?” Emmet waved expansively. “No danger at all. Hardly any. Well, you know, acceptable levels.” Emmet trailed off when Snow continued to glare at him with narrowed eyes.

She huffed a sigh.

“You know what, fine. Just…tell me what you learned.” Snow attempted to mollify herself and spared a glare at Ruby, who was enjoying Emmet’s view and still holding that spare shirt that Granny had sent her out with.

“What?” Emmet’s eyes went wide.  His mind hurriedly skating away from the mental imagery of Regina bent over a table.

“You lost control. Why?” Snow plucked the shirt from Ruby’s hands and tossed it to Emmet.

“Lost control…well…that’s a little…”

“There’s scorch marks on the ceiling, Emmet.” Snow waved up and Emmet winced when he realised that was true.

“Well, I was…um…annoyed.” Emmet had an inordinate interest in the ceiling. He wriggled his way into his borrowed tee shirt, good grief it was small, he was practically busting out of it.

“Annoyed? At what?” Snow was pretty much the only female (alright and some of the males did as well) that didn’t sigh in disappointment when Emmet managed to yank the shirt down over his stomach.

“Uh…” Emmet froze, his eyes darting to Snow again.

“It’s not a difficult question, Emmet.” Snow lifted her hand and dropped it again. “What on earth could get you so hot under the collar that you set fire to yourself?”

Emmet clutched the towel in his hands, slowly throttling it in his huge grip. He swallowed hard and very much did not want to look at Regina again because realising that she could literally set him afire with a look was one thing, explaining that to his mother was just… _not happening_.

“The NRA.” Emmet decided suddenly.

“What?”

“You know…gun control? It’s an issue for me.” Emmet shoved his hands deep into his pockets, his shoulders hunching and the seams creaking in his borrowed shirt. He was definitely going to hulk out of this damn thing.

Snow frowned, _fully_ aware that she was having smoke blown in her general direction and not at all pleased about it.

“I gotta go.” Emmet blurted.

“I thought you were staying for dinner?” Henry finally looked up from his math.

“I, uh, yes! Later. I’ll be back in a while. I just need to go and get…” Emmet pointed at Regina and raised his eyebrows.

She was watching him with a faintly bemused expression on her face and shrugged minutely. His eyes narrowed a fraction. Was she supposed to get him out of trouble or not?

“A gun permit?”

“YES!” Emmet stepped towards her and then hauled himself to a halt when he realised that was a _bad_ idea. “I, uh, need a gun permit. Paperwork. Bane of every cop’s life, right? Also, shower because I’m all…foam.”

Emmet waved needlessly at himself and turned to go, smiling nervously at Snow. He waved at her, ignoring the heckling from Ruby about the state he’d left the diner in and hurried out of the door and down the steps.

“Cold shower.” He decided firmly.

_“Very_ cold shower.”


End file.
